


saying goodbye

by halfwheeze



Series: Rare HP Bingo Series [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Half is regular setting, Half of the fic is Victorian, Heavy Angst, Longing, POV Fred Weasley, Pining, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25297402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: The first time he loses her, it’s before time can remember. The first time he feels it, deep within his chest as if he is losing a piece of himself, the year is 1854.When they meet again, when they catch each other across the cosmos, the year is 1991.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Fred Weasley
Series: Rare HP Bingo Series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795096
Comments: 7
Kudos: 74





	saying goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> second work for the rare hp bingo!
> 
> my prompt was  
> o5: victorian england.

The first time he loses her, it’s before time can remember. The first time he feels it, deep within his chest as if he is losing a piece of himself, the year is 1854. She’s fading fast, he knows it, and she knows it, and they both know that the other knows it, and perhaps that’s why they’re both crying. She’s a lady, done up in the style of Queen Victoria and her lot, and he’s not but a kitchen boy, and yet she’s still leaving before he does. He was meant to grow sick before she did. This Cholera knows no bounds of class, no chance of change, no survival. Other people, they get better. But she won’t. 

“Don’t miss me too badly, would you? I’ll see you again, my love. You won’t be alone forever,” she tries to comfort him, a hand against his face. It’s too cold. Her hand is so cold, like ice, like she’s gone already, like she’ll leave and he won’t get her back this time and he’ll watch her fade for naught. He can’t be thinking of that. He grabs her hand and kisses the back of it, smiles at her even when the muscles pull against it. She smiles back, even through the tears. Oh what a liar a smile can be. 

“We’ll live forever, won’t we? Next time, I’ll marry you. I’ll take you to meet my mam and she’ll tell you stories of me as a wee thing, and I’ll come round and meet your family as well. I’ll cook you meals and you’ll sing me to sleep. We’ll be happy, I promise,” he says, kissing the back of her hand again and again, begging her to believe him. She laughs, a crackling thing like the fire that he’s laid her so, so close to, just to keep her warm in this dreadful winter with her dreadful cold - it’s just a cold, it’s just a cold, she’s only caught cold - so close that she’s nearly haloed by it. His angel. 

“We’ll take ferry rides on the Thames just to watch the people, and you’ll tell me their stories to make me laugh. We’ll -” her words are broken apart by her coughing, and he hands her a glass of wine. He can’t guarantee the water, and he won’t let anything put her worse off than she already is. The coughing gets worse, and he has to put a hand against her back to keep her upright. 

It’s a hard night after that. 

She doesn’t die that night, but it isn’t long. He couldn’t tell you how much longer she lasted after that, the way that she faded away, the way she almost didn’t know who he was as she got further along. He remembers it perfectly, but he couldn’t say it aloud. After she died, he hardly spoke at all. 

When they meet again, when they catch each other across the cosmos, the year is 1991. She’s eleven and her name is Hermione and he’s thirteen and his name is Fred, and they’re in the same house. They have  _ magic,  _ magic that could have saved her once, and Fred tries not to be bitter because he gets to  _ see her again.  _ She’s right there and real and he loves her, he loves her, he loves her. 

She doesn’t remember. 

It happens, sometimes. A few lives, they haven’t remembered. Once, she remembered and he didn’t and that was that. A few times, neither of them remembered, but he can remember so clearly, in the distance, what it was still like to be in love. To love her and not have any universal reason why, to love the way that her nose wrinkles when she concentrates and the way that she loses her temper when she knows she’s right. It’s okay that she doesn’t remember. He’ll love her anyway. 

When she clearly, quite clearly, clear to everyone but Ron himself, develops a crush on Fred’s younger brother, it hurts. It means that he gets to see her more often - Ron’s friends, both Hermione and the boy who lived, are always at the Burrow, and he sees her all the time. He sees her frazzled mornings and her frizzy hair and the way that she stumbles when she forgets about the stairs in the morning. He catches her when she falls and he smiles to make it seem like some sort of joke and she squints at him and the suspicion doesn’t hurt, but it does make his chest burn a little. At least this time he has George. George understands  _ him  _ even when he doesn’t understand  _ them.  _

There’s a war on. When the war begins, really begins, Hermione disappears. So does the boy who lived, and so does Fred’s little brother, but they take Hermione with them, and Fred cannot hide his franticness from his twin.  _ She can’t die without him there, she can’t die alone, she can’t die, she can’t die, she can’t die.  _ George doesn’t understand the ferocity of his worry, but he still holds Fred as he sobs uncontrollably when her name never appears in the paper, never has to be read on the Night Watch, even when that should console him, what if he just never knows? What if she leaves and he doesn’t know that he’s without her for months? What if she never  _ knows?  _

He sees her again at Hogwarts, where he saw her first. She’s so much bigger now, so much more, and he supposes he is as well. He does not feel like anything more than he was before. It’s fitting, though, for Hogwarts to be the last time he sees her this time, eye contact across the castle as he laughs at something one of his many brothers said, and briefest meeting of brown and brown before he goes down, down, down. And in her eyes, he saw something he had hoped he would not see in this circumstance, not in this life. 

Recognition. 

Surprise. 

Grief. 

Mourning. 

_ I’m so sorry I didn’t notice you before.  _

He tries to tell her. 

_ It’s okay. We’ll live forever, won’t we?  _

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! kudos and comment!


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